Capers CIS medal dream squashed by Gee-Gees

VICTORIA, B.C. — The chances of the Cape Breton University Capers women’s soccer team medalling at this year’s Canadian Interuniversity Sport championship came to an abrupt halt on Thursday after they suffered a 3-1 loss to the Ottawa Gee-Gees.

“The first half was good,” said Capers head coach Stephen (Ness) Timmons. “They got an early goal. It’s tough to deal with an early goal against this squad because they don’t give up much. We had a very good first half and even going into it down 2-1 we felt very positive going into the second half.”

Ottawa’s Kayla Jones scored at 3:01 to give the Gee-Gees a 1-0 lead.

The Capers regained some momentum when Jessica Fertado kicked in a goal off the rebound, but the score wouldn’t stay even for long as Krista Drayott scored at 26:24 for a 2-1 Ottawa lead.

“The second half just didn’t materialize,” said Timmons. “We couldn’t get anything going to get back into it, to get a goal.”

Vanessa MacMillan found the back of the net at 79:36 to round out the Gee-Gees scoring.

“We had a lot injuries to deal with all year,” said Timmons. “The season was fantastic. And even (Thursday) we played a solid game. We played the No. 1 team in the country.”

The Capers were given a ticket to the CIS finals after finishing second at the Atlantic University Sport championships held last weekend in Sydney.

The Capers were defeated by the Dalhousie Tigers, who captured their second straight AUS banner.

The Capers will again match up against rival Dalhousie today in a consolation game to be played at 3 p.m. Atlantic time.

The highest the Capers can hope finish is in the CIS tourney is fifth place.